How Neighborly Are You?

I remember growing up how neighbors looked out for each other. Even if you really didn’t like each other that much you still looked out for each other especially when your neighbors are elderly.  But that doesn’t always seem the case nowadays.

The snow storm that arrived at the end of October proved to be quite the storm. A week later there are still thousands without power. Today on the news I heard about an 86 year women who was found dead in her home possibly by hypothermia. Her son found her wrapped in blankets. I cannot stop thinking about her. Why did her son not bring her home with him? I believe the news also said that he was fighting cancer but regardless, why was she home alone?  Why didn’t her neighbors check in on her to see if she was ok? I really don’t understand. How difficult is it to walk across the street or walk next door and check in on your neighbors?

We are very lucky to have a few nice neighbors. One of our neighbors is a retired cop and his wife is a teacher. We help each other out a lot and if either of us need anything we are always there for each other. I’ve watched their dog many times when they went away or stayed out late and needed to feed her and take her out. When I had my baby and my husband was travelling they didn’t hesitate to snow blow my driveway. My neighbor across the street would come over and feed my dogs if I needed her too. She home schools her kids so if we needed something she didn’t hesitate to help and I was there for her when she went on vacation. There are about 5 homes that look out for each other. We bring the mail and newspapers in if someone is away, feed the cats when they are on vacation and make the house look lived in, help mow each others lawn if needed. That is what neighbors are for.


During the storm last week, we, like so many thousands lost power. Hubby went out that morning in search of coffee and food. Hubby brought back extra coffee for our neighbor and he was so grateful for that cup of coffee. Today we finally started clearing the trees that snapped off during the storm and our neighbor loaded up his truck and brought everything to the dump for us – because that is what neighbors do.

But you know what has been annoying the hell out of me is that down the street there is someone we talk to all the time. We’ve known them since we moved into the neighborhood 9 years ago. Their girls were 5 & 7 and I’ve hung out over there many times and they’ve come to our house many times. The girls would play in the muck in my back yard. My husband has helped them out so many times with their computer issues, network connections, rebuilding their laptop, we gave them an all-in-one printer/fax/copier, clothes for the girls, etc you get the idea – we’ve done a lot of shit for them. Anyway they have a generator that they were using since they lost power. I was texting with her and she had asked me if I was home and I told her I was home alone with my dogs while hubby was at his parents with Buggy and not once during the conversation did she even ask me over for a cup of coffee or a hey do you want to come over for a bit and get warm – not even once. They have one of those electric fireplaces so I know she was using it to warm up the house.  That shit really pisses me off that you know someone is sitting in their house with no heat and you don’t even offer them an invite to your warm house. I would never ever do that to someone. Did she think that if she invited me I would ask to bring my dogs – really?  It wasn’t freezing yet in the house but bloody hell – it was cold! My dogs were fine – I was cold!  She kept telling me what the news was saying about the power being restored. Bitch – nothing like rubbing it in. That just totally left a sour taste in my mouth. I will always help anyone as long as I’m able to because that’s what neighbors do but don’t shit on me. If that was me with the power I would have offered to make a pot of coffee and snacks or sandwiches and bring it over or have them over – whatever they wanted to do.  Need to take a shower, come over I have two bathroom, whatever I can do to help.

Today I made 3 pots of coffee – THREE because we are rebuilding our front porch and a friend of ours is working very hard to try and get this done before any more crappy weather arrives. I also fixed him lunch and made sure that he had plenty of drinks on hand – because that is how we are, if you are working on our house or doing something for us you will be fed and have plenty to drink.

What about you? Do you have great neighbors? How do you get along with them?